“That’s not so good.”
“No, it isn’t. Hutch, this is not going to work. You try to set down at that pace, and you’ll bounce all the way to Vega.”
Some of that must have spilled over onto Tor’s channel. “Hutch, what are you doing?” he demanded.
She wasn’t entirely sure.
Chapter 37
“Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”
TOR LISTENED WITH growing horror while she explained. Coming in too fast. Going to pass overhead. No way to slow down. Don’t know what else to try. “I could go up one of the propulsion tubes.”
“I don’t think that would work.”
“I wasn’t serious.”
He was standing beside the exit hatch. Everything seemed absolutely still. A peaceful night under the stars.
“I’m out of ideas,” she was saying.
“Are you still braking?”
“Yes. Using two packs. Got two more when these give out. But I don’t think they’re going to be enough.”
Tor looked back, over the flat ground between the ridges, past the distant arcs of the thrusters, trying to see her. The shuttle’s lights had grown brighter, but of course she wouldn’t be visible out there anywhere. “Do you have enough air for yourself?”
“Yes. Sure.”
“You’re certain.”
“Did you want me to go back?”
They both laughed, and it was as if a wall had broken inside him, and he recognized it was over. And when he had done that, when he’d resigned himself that he wasn’t going to survive, he laughed again. “I’ll wave as you go by.”
Hutch was silent.
“How fast will you be traveling when you get here?”
“About thirty klicks.”
“And you’ll be here in….?”
“Thirteen minutes and counting.”
Thirty klicks. It wasn’t all that fast. He felt a flicker of hope, and almost regretted it. Resignation seemed better. “Maybe there’s still a way to do it,” he said.
“How?”
“You’d take some lumps.”
“How? What do we do?”
“Hold on a few seconds.”
He dropped down the exit hatch, switched on his lamp, and ran toward First and Main.
“What?” she demanded.
“I’ll explain in a minute. Let me see first whether it’s feasible.” He charged past the werewolf, feeling for the first time that his air was getting a bit close. He pulled up at the Ditch. The cable still hung down to the lower decks.
He started hauling it up. There was more of it than he remembered, but that was good.
“I don’t want to rush you, Tor, but if you’re got something, you’d better make it quick.”
“Try to get low. I’m going to toss you a rope.” He heard her laugh again. But this time the sound sent a chill up his spine. “I’m serious.”
“Do it,” she said. “I don’t have anything better.”
There was a lot of cable. Almost a hundred meters. It was strong stuff, and he tried to loop it around his shoulder as it came out of the hole but there was too much to keep in order. And it seemed to go on forever.
“Tor, what kind of rope?”
“A net. It’ll be about six meters across. Right where I’m standing.”
“Net made of what?”
“Cable.”
He gave up waiting for the end to appear and decided hell with it. He started back toward the exit, trying to run, dragging it behind him. He climbed the ladder, went through the exit hatch, and pulled it out onto the surface.
“I’ve exhausted the first set of go-packs,” said Hutch. “Switching to my reserves.”
The line behind him had gotten tangled.
He was still sorting it out when the shuttle glided past. It was a couple of hundred meters off to one side. There were no directions here, no east or west. Starboard, he thought. It’s off the starboard side. Some of its lights died as he watched.
Keep your head. There’s still time. (Why was it easier to give up?)
As best he could, he set out a strip of cable and made a loop at the top about six meters in diameter. He tied it, and then laid a few crosspieces over it and tied them, so that he had a net of sorts. It was hard to work with because it kept drifting away.
When he was satisfied with it, he pulled what remained of the cable, approximately twenty meters, out of the exit and tied the end of it around his waist.
A NET? THERE was a touch of déja`vu in that. It hadn’t been that long since she’d tried to pilot a crippled lander into a net at Deepsix.
The two go-packs she’d used up and discarded had raced well ahead of her by now.
“You’ll have to stay low,” he said. “It’ll only be a few meters off the ground.”
“Okay.”
“Probably tangled. I can’t do anything about that. Get hold when you come in. If you can.”
“Okay.” She raced over the chindi’s rear tubes, and then the rock landscape swept beneath her. She was slowing, but not quickly enough.
“I’ll be on the other end.”
“Why not anchor it? Let me try to land?”
“You’ll take too much of a beating. Do it my way.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Doesn’t much matter at this point.”
Ahead, the landscape opened into a plain. She picked up a few low hills on the right, which straightened into one of the ridges that bracketed the exit hatch. The second ridge appeared moments later. “When you get hold of it, you should pull me off the surface.”
That was correct. As far as it went. But she was going down.
“With luck, we’ll both come away in pretty good shape.”
“How’s your air?”
“Got enough if you don’t miss me.”
She was still moving feetfirst. If she was going to grab a net, she needed to get turned around. Get her feet out of the way. She shut off both go-packs.
“—Should give you three or four seconds before the cable plays out.”
She struggled out of her belly go-pack.
A last row of hills passed beneath her, then she was out over a stretch of smooth rock. And she saw him ahead, about four hundred meters. Saw the net. It was desperately small, a fragile web that hung shapelessly above him.
She threw the go-pack away, down and to the rear. The action caused her to begin to rotate around her center of mass. Bringing her gradually face forward.
“Try to relax your body.”
Yes. Good idea, that last. Clever guy, Tor.
The two ridges were angling in now centering the exit hatch. Tor was standing just off to one side. Trying to hold up the net. Looking ludicrous.
Forty seconds.
The net was getting bigger, but not by much. It wasn’t really a net at all, just a few strands looped together, tangled, and as she raced across that silent landscape he tried again to coax it higher, to spread it out.
Beyond it, the ground was clear until the ridges came together.
Gray rock rippled past. She had drifted off course and blipped the go-pack, using it to correct.
“Hutch.” Brownstein’s voice spoke from far away.
“Busy,” she said.
Tor was down on one knee, watching. Trying to guide her. Keep coming. Stay straight. A little lower.
Then he sat down. Got his shoes clear of the ground.
Another brief burst from the go-pack.
FROM TOR’S POINT of view, it was terrifying. She came over the horizon, headfirst like a meteor, skimming the ground.
The air was getting thick, but it was still breathable. He looked at her and looked at the rock. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Harebrained scheme. I may have killed her, too.
IT WOULD HAVE taken pure luck to hit it dead center, and Hutch could see she was off to one side. But she picked the section she wanted, a brace of netting that floated free and clear of the tangle. She raced across the last thirty meters, concentrating on her target and blocking everything else out of her mind. Except that she was aware of Tor crouched below her, of his face frozen in horror. She snatched at the cable. And kept going.